WBeG’s Abyei community rejects moves to include region in Sudan elections

November 2, 2014 (WAU) – Western Bahr el Ghazal’s Abyei community have denounced provocative moves by Sudan’s election commission include the contested region in its upcoming election next year.

In a petition handed to the state and central government and copied to the Abyei area administration, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (NMISS), the community rejected any proposal that goes against the results of the referendum conducted last year.

The community has criticised the lack of progress since the signing of a roadmap for peace, saying the region continues to witness incidents of unrest, citing the killing of Ngok Dinka paramount chief Kuol Deng Kuol, who was gunned down after an Un concoy he was travelling in was ambushed last May.

“We the people of Abyei [are] hereby sticking on the result of the referendum,” the community said in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune.

“We are very clear at our stand and let the international community recognise and understand that the referendum, which was conducted last year, was within the interest of Abyei communities all over the world,” the statement adds.

The community living in Western Bahr el Ghazal has also welcomed the extension of the mandate for the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA), calling on the peace keeping mission to provide protection to the citizens of Abyei.

Residents of the disputed region voted overwhelmingly to join South Sudan in an unofficial referendum held in October 2013.

The vote was organised by Abyei’s Dinka Ngok ethnic group, who reside permanently in the area and have strong ties to the South and backed its rebel army during its long struggle for independence from the north.

The Arab Misseriya nomads, who enter the area periodically to graze their cattle and consider the area their ancestral land, rejected the vote.

The fate of Abyei, which adjoins Sudan and South Sudan and is claimed by both countries, remains one of the most divisive, outstanding issues since the South seceded in 2011 following a 2005 peace deal which paved the way for a vote on self-determination.

The same peace deal was supposed to provide for a separate referendum on the issie of Abyei, but the vote never took place amid ongoing disagreement between the two parties over who was eligible to take part.

(ST)